“Hell if I know.”
“He didn’t want you out of the game. I thought that was the big deal for him. He felt with you out of the game it was going to hurt our bottom line, even with Provensano’s territory in our pocket. Why would he want to take you out now?”
“I don’t know,” Mick said, and ran the back of his hand across his bloodshot eyes.
“You look like shit,” Teddy said. “Sure you have the capacity to get out there?”
“I don’t have a choice. Carp Bianchi killed Flo’s son. And Flo and her entire household. And an army of my men. And tried to take out my lady. I have no choice.”
“But for Carp to turn on us like that!”
“Yeah,” Mick said. “But I don’t know. I keep thinking something is off. Something’s not right.”
Teddy’s heart began to pound. “Like what?” Teddy asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” Then Mick exhaled. Nothing he could do about it right now anyway. “But what I want from you, Teddy, is your word that you’ll look out for Rosalind. If anything happens to me, you’ll protect her.”
Teddy placed his hand on Mick’s arm. “You know I will,” he said.
Mick was pleased to hear it. Then he headed for the front.
He called Roz to the bedroom, to privately explain to her what was going to happen. She wasn’t pleased, but she understood. Mick reloaded his guns, and headed out with a handful of his men.
But as soon as they closed the door on the living quarters upstairs in the building and made their way downstairs, and were about to exit the building, Carp Bianchi entered the building. Mick and his security team all drew their weapons. Carp raised his hands, frozen in place. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he asked them.
Mick was stunned that he would ask such a question. “You ask me something like that when you just killed my people? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Killed your people?” Carp was stunned. “How you gonna think I killed your people? Your people are my people! What the fuck are you talking about, Mick?”
Was this another misdirection? Mick stared at Carp.
“I heard about the hit. I heard you were in New York so I knew where to come. I knew radio silence was activated to avoid tracking, and I came where I knew to come. Now you’re trying to accuse me of orchestrating this shit? Me? Of turning on you, on our people? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Mick already had an inkling. He already had that feeling in the pit of his gut that told him something was off. Then, as he stood there, as his men kept their guns drawn on Carp Bianchi and Carp kept insisting they had the wrong guy, Mick remembered something Roz had just said.
It’s always the one you least expect, she said. They take the spotlight off of them by putting it on somebody else. It’s always the one you least expect. The one you least expect. The one you least . . .
And Mick took off and ran back up those stairs.
“What is going on here?” Carp asked bewilderedly, watching Mick run.
The men were floored too. They didn’t know what to do. That was why half of them followed Mick back up, and the other half kept their weapons trained on Carp. He wasn’t going anywhere until they found out what was really going on.
A double cross was really going on. It happened a mere minutes after Mick and his men walked out of the upstairs part of the house. Everybody were in the living room when it happened. First a gun was drawn. It had a silencer on it, so it was a planned hit. Roz was stunned. She saw Vito DeLuca get shot. She saw Teddy Stefani get shot. Then Leo Barone, Mick’s right hand man, Mick’s security chief, the double-crosser, turned his gun on Roz.
But Roz was ready for him. Because Mick, when he was reloading his guns before he left, had handed one of those guns to Roz. “Trust Teddy,” he had said to her. “But nobody else. If anything happens, be prepared to shoot.”
She knew it was going to be a tall order, since she’d never shot a gun before in her life, but as soon as Leo Barone shot Vito DeLuca, she was pulling out her own gun. By the time Leo shot Teddy Stefani, she was aiming her gun at Leo. By the time Leo turned to her, she fired her weapon. But her lack of experience showed. She missed badly. Leo smiled at her lack of skill, aimed his own weapon at her, and prepared to take her out. She had her chance and missed. Now it was his turn.
But Mick never missed. And this time was no exception. The door flew open, and he took Leo out as soon as Roz’s gun misfired. He shot him repeatedly. He wanted to overkill him. He wanted to keep shooting that dead man. But Mick was so angry, and felt so betrayed, that he decided the man who had been his chief of security, wasn’t worth the bullets.
Mick tossed the gun aside, tired of this shit. Then he looked at Rosalind. And opened his arms. She didn’t hesitate. She ran to him.
EPILOGUE